We all have a story. And within that story are many other stories that we tell ourself on a daily basis. Stories about why our life is the way it is, or is not, and why we can or can’t have the things that we so desire.
But what if the stories we’re telling ourself, are not serving us anymore? What if they’re contributing to a life that feels ‘less than’ or downright hard? What if these stories are limiting our experiences in some way? Keeping us small. Keeping us from the very things that our heart-of-hearts wants for us?
Today on I Love Me the Podcast we explore the stories we tell ourself, how they effect our life, and what we can do to start to unravel the stories that have reached their use-by date.
Simple, inspiring lessons in self-love. Hi gorgeous, it’s Tamra here.
Over the past few episodes I’ve been talking about how Autumn is the season of letting go.
And if there’s one thing we want to be letting go of, it’s the stories we tell ourself.
The stories that are no longer serving us.
For everyday we engage in a dialogue with ourselves, weaving narratives that shape our perceptions, decisions, and ultimately, our reality.
Now, these narratives – so the words we tell ourselves day in day out, in our mind or out loud – these narratives are not just random thoughts.
They’re deeply ingrained beliefs that often go unquestioned.
Some of these beliefs serve us.
Maybe we believe that we are strong and resilient, and this helps us trust ourself as we move forward in life.
While others shackle us, hindering our progress and potential.
These are what we refer to as our ‘limiting beliefs’.
Beliefs that were handed down to us as young children, when we were too young, and our mind too open, to know any better.
I discuss how we take on beliefs as a child in Episode 2 – Programmed for Love.
It’s these beliefs that fuel the stories we tell ourself, about our capabilities, about our worth, about the world around us.
About how safe we are.
Or how loved we are.
And these stories are rooted in our past experiences, societal norms or inherited beliefs, and they manifest as self-doubt, a fear of failure, or a feeling of unworthiness.
If you have deep feelings of being unworthy, make sure you listen to Episode 32: Stop measuring your worth, and love yourself instead.
For example, my Dad was never taught how to read properly.
And so I inherited his belief, of ‘I’m not smart enough.’
Maybe this is a belief that you hold.
Or the super common belief of ‘I’m not good enough’.
As a result of this, maybe` you pursued a career that didn’t require you to use your brain so much.
Or perhaps you went the other way like me, taking on a career where you were always trying to prove that you were smart enough.
You decide to be a lawyer or a doctor, or a scientist…
Not because you feel deeply passionate about those careers, but because you want to be taken seriously.
You want to be seen.
You want to be seen as worthy and respectable to others.
Yet, no matter how high up the ladder you climb, you still have this niggling feeling that you’re not smart enough OR not good enough, and so you keep on this pathway of striving, in a bid to prove yourself.
Until, at some point, you burn out.
These stories of not being enough; they exhaust and deplete us to the point that we realise there has to be another way.
And that other way, is shifting the belief of ‘I’m not smart enough’ or ‘I’m not good enough’.
Because once you believe you ARE good enough and you ARE smart enough, then you won’t be needing to prove yourself anymore, because you will believe in yourself.
And when you believe in yourself, you don’t do things for external validation.
Now before we get angry and upset about all the stories that’ve been limiting our experience of life, there’s something we need to understand….
Our stories are important, because they got us to where we are right now.
We are here, because we’ve told ourselves specific stories, based on the beliefs we were told as children.
So everything we see around us, is the result of the stories we’ve told ourself.
The home we live in, the partner we have or have not attracted in, our relationship with money, the quality of the friendships we have, the state of our health…
All of it is a result of the stories we are owning; the stories we are telling ourself day in day out.
It’s a mirror image.
And to some extent those stories will have served us.
If we return to this example of someone who didn’t believe they were smart enough so they pursued a career – that society deems as an intelligent profession – then you have created a great career for yourself.
And you’ve possibly earnt a lot of money, maybe used it to buy a home, or travel.
So in this way, this story of not being smart enough has given you something.
For me, I went into journalism, working as a newsreader.
And while I enjoyed elements of it, I didn’t love all of it.
That said, it served me, in giving me so many great skills and experience, so I could be here today, creating this podcast for you…
Doing something that I DO love.
This is why we want to honour the journey our stories have taken us on, be grateful for the positive parts of that journey – as there will be some – and then let that journey inspire you into a way of life that is more aligned with what your heart-of-hearts truely wants.
Minus the stories.
For there comes a point when our beliefs start to hurt us.
And it’s at that point, we know it’s time to choose a new story.
A new narrative.
A new belief.
A belief like:
I AM good enough.
I AM smart enough.
I AM worthy.
And in adopting these new beliefs, we’re able to live our life in a way that feels nourishing.
So maybe you decide to stay in the same career, but you approach it in a new way.
Maybe you give up the overtime, cut back your hours, and spend more time with your family.
And more time looking after yourself.
Or perhaps you realise that because you are smart enough you no longer need to prove yourself through your career choice, and you decide to do something that lights you up, like become a jewellery maker, or an artist or a landscape designer.
Like I said, we are where we are in life, because of these stories we’ve told ourself.
And the more we tell ourself these stories, the more we believe them.
Our brain builds a kind of scaffolding on which things will be built and strengthened later on.
The more we repeat certain thoughts and certain behaviours, based on these beliefs we’ve formed, the more those thoughts and behaviours become a habit.
So that by the time you’re an adult, this behaviour is so ingrained, it just appears to be part of who you are.
You get really good at losing your temper when things don’t go your way, because it’s worked for you in the past.
Or you avoid relationships, because that makes you feel safe.
So anytime you meet someone you really like, you internally go out of your way to sabotage it.
Because it feels safer that way.
And so you become known as the person who is always ‘single’.
Always alone.
Always leaving men.
And maybe you have a story around this like ‘There are no good guys out there’, so you feel justified in not staying in a relationship.
Of course, that’s not who you are.
And there are good guys out there.
Trust me, I married one of them!
You simply learnt this early on, and it became your default.
And because that’s what you believed, that’s what you experienced.
We are being presented with around 2-million bits of information every second.
Now that’s a lot of information!!
So it’s no surprise our brain can’t absorb all that information in one go.
How does our brain cope with this information overload?
It selects around 134 bits of information for us to consciously see and process.
Now you may be wondering how does our brains decide which bits of information to select?
Well…
It relies on our subconscious programming.
Our belief systems.
So, if for example, you have a belief of:
‘There aren’t any good guys out there’, then you will keep being presented with the guys who wouldn’t be a good match for you.
It’s not that there are no good guys out there, it’s that you aren’t seeing them, because your belief is acting like a veil and blocking them out.
Your Prince could be living next door, or sitting next to you at work, and you never talk to them, because you keep yourself too busy to enter into a friendship with them, or your dismiss them as ‘another one of those guys that always let you down’ even though you know nothing about them.
This is an example of how our mind makes up ideas about people, before we’ve had a chance to get to know them.
Maybe you have a belief of:
‘There’s never enough money to go around’, and so because of this belief system, you start attracting in situations that use up all your money.
And the multiple ways of attracting in more money completely pass you by, because you’re not actually open to seeing those opportunities, because you’re so stuck in your story, of there never being enough money.
We can consider these stories or beliefs, as invisible barriers, squashing our potential and dictating boundaries of what is possible for us.
When we hold onto these beliefs that don’t serve us, it’s like looking through a grubby distorted lens, which magnifies our obstacles and minimises our opportunities.
But more importantly, these stories perpetuate a cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies, where the more we fail, the more we believe we will fail.
And if you have a belief around being a failure, take a listen to Episode 18: Is the fear of failure keeping you from loving yourself?
We take on these beliefs, and for a certain amount of time, they serve us.
Maybe as a child you learnt that if you were helpful and did what you were told, this seemingly good behaviour earned your mother’s affections.
And so you became the ‘good girl’.
Always top of your class, always helping around at home, always doing things that attracted some sort of ‘love’.
You were the nice girl.
The girl people could depend upon.
And as a result, the girl who received praise and appreciation.
But as you grow up into a woman, you start to realise that playing the ‘good girl’ has a down side.
You start to feel emotions wanting to bubble to the surface, emotions around not speaking up for yourself, around being taken advantage off, that as a child you suppressed in a bid to maintain the ‘good girl’ image, so you wouldn’t be denied love.
And you try to stuff them down, because they go against this ‘nice girl’ story you’ve created for yourself.
As a result, you’re carrying around this huge weight of expectation.
And you start to feel like you’re coming unstuck, because this well of suppressed emotions, wants to bubble to the surface, but you won’t let it.
You can’t let it, because you’re the ‘good girl’.
And you believe that allowing yourself to get angry about things that happened in your past, is in direct conflict with who you believe yourself to be.
Not being willing to feel our feelings, stops us feeling the full spectrum of who we are.
It’s essentially saying to ourself:
‘I only accept this part of you, but I don’t accept the full package.’
And if we don’t accept ourself in our entirety – including those uncomfortable emotions – then this is a rejection of self, which is like a hole, where our self-love leaks out.
So this women is battling with herself, because she has emotions that want to be felt, but she is unwilling to feel them for fear of ruining the image she’s created for herself.
At the same time, she starts dating.
And she feels she presents herself really well.
She looks beautiful, she acts polite and calm, and she listens to the potential suitor in front of her.
Problem is, she’s not being honest.
The guy talks about something that she doesn’t agree with, but she goes along with it, to keep the peace.
She puts on this beautiful little show of perfection, but this guy doesn’t want a perfect person, he wants a real person.
He wants someone who is wiling to debate him, and question him, and show her true feelings around him.
He really likes her, but feels she lacks any real depth.
And so he never calls for a second date.
And so this woman continues to go on date-after-date with new guys, never actually making it past the first few dates, because she’s disowning a part of herself.
And each of these men can feel that.
Like she’s holding something back.
Finally, after not being called back for the umpttenth time, she realises that she is the common denominator, so perhaps there’s something going on with her that needs addressing.
And sure enough, through looking at her beliefs, and realising that the good girl story is no longer serving her, she’s able to start the gentle and loving process of releasing that belief.
Realising that story.
It doesn’t mean that she becomes a rebel where she acts all obnoxious-like.
It simply means that she’s more honest with herself.
She starts to feel her feelings, like I share in Episode 14: Fall in love with feeling yourself.
She starts to speak up – lovingly but firmly – if something someone says is out of integrity, and doesn’t sit well with her.
She stops saying Yes to everyone else, and starts saying Yes to herself.
She no longer identifies as the ‘good girl’, but instead as someone who speaks her truth, with loving, but firm boundaries.
This is just another example of how our beliefs can have an expiry date.
This belief served her for some time; it allowed her to feel loved and appreciated as a child, in a household where perhaps that love wouldn’t have been as free-flowing as it was, if she didn’t take on the ‘good girl’ persona.
But as an adult she realised that there was a better way.
A way that allowed her to be true to herself, so she could have a more expansive experience of life, and finally, attract in the guy that was a beautiful match for her.
I had plenty of beliefs like this.
I remember as a teenager, I became very fiery, and I would rebel against whatever someone said, just to prove them wrong.
To prove that I was ‘good enough’.
And this worked for me many years.
Being a rebel became my story.
I remember my school career’s counsellor telling me not to apply for the Graduate Diploma in Arts in Commercial Radio at university.
He told me I wouldn’t get in straight out of Year 12, because I needed to get a three-year Batchelor’s Degree first, before I could do post-graduate study.
Being told I couldn’t do it, made me all the more determined to prove him wrong.
I volunteered at the local community radio station, I did work experience at commercial radio stations, I did a night school short course at university in sound production, all so I could gain enough experience – despite not having an undergraduate degree – to convince the board that I would be a good fit for their course.
As it turned out, out of the 14 people Australia-wide that were selected for the Graduate Diploma in Commercial Radio, I was one of them.
I got in!
I proved that I could do what other’s said I could not.
And so in this respect, this need to rebel, to prove I was good enough, worked.
At this point in time, it served me!
And it served me many times over and over again in my life.
Until it stopped working, and I realised that if I actually believed I was good enough, as opposed to trying to prove I was good enough, that I wouldn’t need to rebel, I could just achieve what I wanted to in a much more down-to-earth, loving way.
No need to prove anything, but simply be myself.
In releasing the belief of ‘I’m not good enough’ I no longer needed to prove that I was good enough, because I knew I was good enough.
And I was good enough, just because I was.
I didn’t need to DO anything, or achieve anything, to be good enough.
And that felt so much more refreshing.
As a result of releasing that belief, the negative narrative that had been playing out in my head, telling me I needed a certain amount of experience or specific qualifications to walk the path I wanted to walk…
It no longer played on repeat.
Instead, there was a calm knowing, that I could walk the path of my choice because I chose too.
And that’s the thing…
When we’re telling ourselves stories that don’t serve us, we end up with a whole lot of negative mind-chatter playing on repeat.
And this doesn’t feel good.
Yet, when we clear out the stories and beliefs that create this negative mental soundtrack, then we feel better.
Day to day living is easier.
And we can simply go about life in more gentle, harmonious way.
A way that flows.
Without needing to show up as anything, but our true authentic self.
Now what I do want to say, is:
There is no point in beating ourselves up for the beliefs that we’ve held onto, even if we’ve held onto them for a REALLY long time.
Even if they caused you a lot of pain, along the way.
Know that on some level they were serving you.
Maybe they helped you feel a particular way or were getting you a certain result in life, that felt comfortable.
All you need to know, is that:
When these beliefs stop serving you – when they start to hurt you, or create a reality you don’t want to experience – then you know it’s time to release them, so you can adopt a more powerful belief, that will serve you well into the future.
Like in my case, I released the belief of I’m not good enough’ and started believing that actually I am good enough.
And as a result, life got easier.
Because that’s the thing with beliefs.
When you release the ones that are no longer serve you, it’s like releasing the long route for an easy route.
Like when you travel to work.
You drive the same way every day because you know it well and it’s serving you at this time.
But then one day there’s a road closure on your usual route, so you need to take a different route.
At the time it feels like an inconvenience, but what you soon realise is that this new route it quicker, there’s less traffic and it cuts down your travel time by 5-minutes.
And so in future you choose the new route.
This is essentially what you’re doing when you clear beliefs, you’re making life easier, more efficient and far more enjoyable.
So you may be wondering, HOW do you clear beliefs?
While I’d love to share this with you here, clearing beliefs – while simple when you know how – does take some learning.
More learning that I can squeeze into a podcast episode.
Hence why I created my online program Remarkable Relationships, where I teach people how to clear their own beliefs, and essentially become their own therapist.
Because in life, we will continue to identify belief after belief, that are no longer serving us, and so for me, that’s something you want to know how to do on your own.
As opposed to needing to go to the therapist for the rest of your life.
Hence, why I teach these skills to help you become self-sufficient, as part of your beautiful journey into self-love.
If you’d like to learn more about the Remarkable Relationships program, that is your one-stop guide on teaching you how to create a healthy relationship with yourself and all the areas of your life, I’ll pop a link in the show notes.
Or you can visit my school gettingnaked.com.au and take a peek at the ‘courses area’ there.
In all my years of exploration into self-love, clearing limiting beliefs is THE most powerful way I’ve found to fast-track developing a healthy relationship with self.
Because you’re going to the root cause of what created a crack in your love for yourself.
For that’s what limiting beliefs are.
They disconnect us from loving ourself.
They fuel stories that we believe, that are non serving.
So the more we identify those beliefs and then clear them out of our subconscious, adopting more healthy, supportive beliefs, the easier it is to love ourself.
Our beliefs form our experience of life and how we experience ourself, within that life.
So if life isn’t magical, if loving yourself feels hard and a whole lot of work, it simply means there are some limiting beliefs buried in the depths of your subconscious mind.
And if you’d like me to teach you how to dig them up, I’d love to be your guide.
You can work with me One-on-One as part of my Intensive – where I personally help you clear the beliefs – or you can join in the Remarkable Relationships program and work through that program on your own.
All the details are on my website.
Now many of us have some interesting stories around ‘money’.
So if you avoid looking at your bank account, feel fear or worry around anything to do with money, then make sure you tune in for next week’s episode, where I’ll be inviting you into a healthier relationship with money, through ‘dating’ money!
Yep, healing our money stories can be a fun and playful experience, if we’re willing for that to be part of our story!
So please have a beautiful week.
Spend some time with a pen and paper, reflecting on what your stories are- awareness is the first step in healing…